Sunday, November 29, 2015

Jean Murray Parker is 86 years old and very frail. Barbara Jean and I have been talking about making a visit to Norman, OK, where she lives. Aunt Jean is guardian to us both, serving that role since our Catholic baptisms, and she is the oldest living relative in our family.

I've often told people that we all have a story to tell. My aunt is the keeper of the Murray story, the story of growing up third generation Irish Catholic with an alcoholic father. She also is keeper of the early stories of her siblings--my dad and Barbara Jean's mom. Those stories are sketchy because Daddy and Aunt Kay were 13 and 10 years older than Aunt Jean. But they are long gone and any hope we have of getting any facts to go with the mythical tales our parents told us rest with Aunt Jean. So we plan to fly to Oklahoma as soon as the college breaks for the holidays. We'd drive, but the roads north of Dallas are icy and better weather is not in the forecast. With ISIS on a killing rampage in Paris, Yemen, Tunisia and Turkey and threats they will bring the bombings across the Atlantic, we know flying is risky, but we remember the terrorist who bombed Oklahoma was an American.

I'm a great believer in recollecting and recording one's life experiences, challenges, triumphs, and yes, even--and maybe especially--family secrets, so the generations to come will have access to their family history. I often give workshop participants a quick quiz, which includes questions like these:

What was life like when your grandparents grew up?

Where did they go to school? What were their interests?

What was their hometown like? Their home?

How did your grandparents meet? What was their courtship like? Their wedding?

What were their biggest challenges as parents?

What job(s) did they have?

Did they struggle or thrive during economic hard times?

What were the traditions of the family?

What was the hardest lesson(s) they learned?

What were their values?

Can you answer these questions about your grandparents? Can your grandchildren answer these questions about you? It's only been recently--with the popularity of FaceBook and other social media--that people have begun to track their happy moments and sad times. Going public, however, isn't necessary. There's a reason we all know what TMI stands for. Having said that, I believe your family should know about the lives and lessons of their relatives. Family history provides a moral compass for descendants.

Sunday, November 22, 2015

My cousin Barbara Jean is visiting us this week, and we’ve entertained
each other with tales of growing up in the late 1950s. It is amazing to me that
children of this era share similar stories even though they lived miles and miles from each other.

Sitting on the porch and drinking coffee this morning, Ronnie
told us about the trucks that drove up and down the alleys in Pampa, TX,
spraying chemicals to rid the night of biting mosquitos. They called the drivers “smoke men” and chased
after them, inhaling the sweet aroma of DDT. Since DDT has no odor, the scent
must have been added by the city’s public works department—or maybe from the
manufacturers—so people could be assured the pesticide was saturating the air.

Barbara Jean and I responded with our own stories of the
numerous times my family visited hers in Baytown, TX. Our parents, enjoying their
cocktail hour, frequently sent us children outside to play in the dusk. More
times than not, that meant chasing the mosquito killing trucks that drove
around the neighborhood. Summer after summer, we probably inhaled enough DDT to
grow an extra set of ears.

Breathing DDT particles in the air, according to the Agency
for Toxic Substances & Disease Registry, affects the nervous system. The government agency says the pesticide was
used on insects that carried malaria, so Americans had a choice: Would folks rather
be eaten alive by mosquitos that might be carrying deadly diseases or douse themselves
with harmful repellents full of potentially dangerous chemicals? In the 1950s manufacturers
convinced the public to choose the latter. Given the choice, the danger of malaria trumped
any concerns about neurological problems.

Times have changed. Today, DDT is banned in the U.S. and has been
since 1972.

The replacements for DDT, however, are not free of side
effects. Products with high concentrates of DEET can cause rashes, disorientation,
and seizures. Picaridin and oil of lemon eucalyptus are two other repellents
that have come to stores in the last decade. Experts say these repellents make good
alternatives to DEET. They also have side effects, but they are less serious…
temporary irritation of the skin, eyes, and/or lungs. (I guess temporary is the
descriptor that makes them less serious.)

The fact is, three-fourths of the American public, according
to Consumer Reports, are more
concerned about West Nile and other deadly diseases carried by those pesky
flying insects that populate warmer climates than any side effects the
pesticides have. As the old saying goes, “Better living through chemistry.”

But is it the right call? I don’t know.

I can only tell you this, decades later, neither Barbara
Jean, Ronnie, nor I have any more visible ears than the original two God gave us. As for the mosquitoes that are swarming around us in the late afternoons,
they are keeping their distance. Our nervous systems? That’s a different story.

Sunday, November 8, 2015

In another week I will be host the Sisterhood Retreat for a
group of Lone Star College female students. A group of them came last year and
we had such a delightful time that my colleague Cassandra Boyd and I decided to
make it an annual event. I affectionately call my small town Nava-slow-da, and it is, which makes it a
perfect place for students to get away from the frantic scrabble of college-work-family
and slow their pace for reflection and renewal.

I’m welcoming these female students into my 1875 Victorian
home, which sits on a corner in one of the oldest neighborhoods in Navasota. I’m
creating a space where they can search inside their heads and hearts and share their
stories of struggle and triumph. They will write, they will dance, they will
talk, and in doing so, they will honor and support each other’s dreams.

Sunday, November 1, 2015

Today is Día de Muertos —
the Day of the Dead —one of the biggest holidays in Mexico, and its celebration
has crossed the Texas-Mexican border. Tradition says during the time of the
Aztecs, a month-long summer celebration was overseen by the goddess
Mictecacihuatl, the Lady of the Dead. After the Aztecs were conquered by Catholic Spaniards, the customs became intertwined
with the Christian commemoration of All Saints' Day.

I love the tradition, mostly because it is
so different from my Celtic Halloween tradition that fears death. Instead of
scaring away ghosts, we welcome the souls of the departed on Día de Muertos.

I also honor my childhood friend
Charlotte Ann Stout Lynch. We became friends in the third grade. She grew up in
a hotel with her father and grandmother. I lived down the street in a house my older
brother dubbed the “slump,” part slum and part dump. I finished college in
three years; Charlotte dropped out about 6 credits from having her bachelor’s
degree. My dad convinced her to finish it long after she’d begun working as an
accountant for Gulf Oil. After that, she earned her CPA and then went on to
finish a law degree. That’s when I realized many people “stop out” of school rather
than drop out. Only governmental agencies
and thoughtless people label them as losers. I was maid of honor in her wedding;
she held the reception for mine in her home. We were planning a girlfriends’
weekend getaway on a Mexican beach when she died from a blood clot, a
complication from minor surgery. I still miss her.

I honor Johnny Campbell who
taught me to kiss one summer night on the back porch. He was a senior and my older
brother’s best friend. I was a 15-year-old high school freshman and instantly in
love after that long, steamy kiss. My mother made sure I never got another by
forbidding me to date him. I never quite forgave her until I learned many, many
years later that my mother was 15 and a freshman in college (she was incredibly
smart, don’t you know) when a football player asked her out. Now I understand
that she knew the regret that could come from kissing a boy who was too old and
worldly. I thought she was being mean, but she was being protective.

And I honor James Alexander Scott
who I never married, but loved so dearly throughout high school. We were so innocent and so hot for each other. If you ever saw the
movie “Splendor in the Grass,” you know the teenage angst we felt. He went to
Viet Nam when he was eighteen, and although he returned, he never came back, if
you know what I mean. Jimmy’s job was to put the American dead in body bags
before sending them home. He became part of the walking wounded, and he committed
suicide in his sister’s backyard when he was forty. I still ache thinking about
the twisted pain he must have felt all those years, and I curse my government
for continuing to send our young to war on foreign soil.

Today especially, I honor the souls of these dearly
departed who remain in my heart. They were important people in my younger life,
for they helped shape me into the woman I am. God hold them close and fill them
with heavenly bliss throughout eternity.